Love, not Pity
by Kenneway
Summary: Spanning several years - from before the Fall, to the start of series 3, we get a small glimpse of why Sherlock decided to not tell John about his plan to fake his death, and the unfortunate consequences.


"Sherlock, I don't want the world believing that you're-"

"That I'm what?"

"A fraud."

"You're afraid everyone is right."

"No."

"You're entertaining the notion, Moriarty is playing with your mind as well - Can't you SEE what's going on?!"

Hurt was etched all over John's face. Or was that pity? Did John think he was a fool to fall for such ludicrous notions - hampered by feelings, succumbing to the ridiculous notions that mind and body both enforced against his own will?

Sherlock was afraid - properly shaken. Sherlock really didn't care what the rest of the world thought, but John, John was a different story entirely.

He knew he should have shown more faith in his flatmate - he'd stood by him ever since that first minute of that day they had met at St. Bart's.

Yet, this fear was _irrational_. And accordingly, difficult to properly process and handle - he knew John would stay by his side, yet he was still scared that at any moment, he would leave - tired of one quip, one insult too many.

John stared at him. Where those tears in his eyes? as he spoke in a low register - this was it - John would leave him by himself forever. He couldn't even register his words. He turned away and left.

Good. He had to protect John. The seeds of doubt, emotionally distancing himself. He had to.

At St. Bart's. One last time. Again, Sherlock forced himself to look John in the face, practically admitting that he was a self-serving brain in a machine. Again, John left.

Good. He had to protect John. He had to.

The doorbell rang. John paused the video Lestrade brought over minutes before, and walked to the door.

Mary.

Looking past the blinding differences between Mary and Sherlock, there was a similar, albeit something. Mary was beautiful, dazzling, funny, warm, kind-hearted, goofy - anything and everything John wanted in a woman.

Sherlock was beautiful in his own way, of course, dazzling to those he needed to in order to access bodies at the morgue, or ways into an office or other building, and the like. He wasn't kind-hearted, only the chief few that he could call "friends" ever saw something like kindness shining from those effervescent eyes, soft words or biting insults fraught with double-meaning - caring. Nothing was ever black or white with Sherlock - there was never any straightforwardness - the best of his humanity was always shown in small, albeit microscopic ways, that only those few he called friends could truly appreciate. His whole personality was a twisted facade - a shield - a clever mind, and repressed actions and feelings. If it is true that the windows to the human soul are indeed the eyes - it's no wonder Sherlock's own were so beautiful and ever-changing. John thought him a puzzle. A complete enigma.

"Oh, and don't worry, I will be with you again _very _soon."

Sherlock winked, stood up, then turned around.

"Lestrade, you can leave now."

John opened the door for Mary, and they made their way to the living room. John ejected the disc, put it away carefully, and turned the player off.

After dinner, when Mary had left, John played the video over again, skipping ahead to where he'd last watched.

Sherlock was recording a short video for John's birthday - or more accurately, Lestrade was recording it - Sherlock was twitching around, complaining.

Lestrade raised an eyebrow, and went to wait on the landing of the ground floor - perhaps Mrs. Hudson was making cookies.

Sherlock sat back down

"John," the video of Sherlock continued, "I need to say it now before I lose my willpower to do so. I don't care if anyone else watches this - I only care about you." John's heart twitched. "John, very soon, I promise you - just not now." Sherlock gazed into the camera intensely. "Goodbye, John." the screen went black.

Months earlier, John and Sherlock were having a day in at the flat.

"John" the real Sherlock asked, "do you pity me?"

"Why would I do that?" Asked John, automatically, typing away on the keys of his laptop.

"Hmm. Indeed. People don't seem to like me. "

John raised a mental eyebrow. He looked up from the screen to look at his flatmate. "But, that doesn't bother you - does it?" John spoke carefully in this unfamiliar territory.

"They pity me. Everyone does. They hate me, think me annoying, but they all pity me, as if there's something wrong with me. The stigma of some mental or neurological disorder, not doubt."

Sherlock looked thoughtful, also a bit distraught - was the human inside trying to regain control? Was he trying to understand emotions so foreign.

"John, I distance myself from any emotions for a reason."

John scratched the back of his head. "I know."

Sherlock was standing by the window, and arm simultaneously holding the curtains back, and resting on the side of it.

"That's fine. It's all fine, Sherlock."

"Do you mean that?" He was still looking out the window.

Before _the_ Fall, John and Sherlock would hold eye contact much longer than normal - John always believed he could see something else - something fleeting, yet still present. Something important that he was missing. In later times, John would fancy it was a plea of sorts - the one that everyone who has ever dreamed desires.

"See me."

"Here me."

"Touch me."

"Talk to me."

"Look into my eyes, _see_. Love me. _please._"

John was on his way out for his birthday dinner, Sherlock wasn't going. Halfway through, John began to open his presents - a bottle of wine, cufflinks, a tie - ordinary, regular things. Then, Greg had pulled out a disc, and with a small smile handed it to John. He borrowed Mike's laptop to play it.

The last words still ringing in his ears "don't worry - I'll be with you again very soon."

"I do mean it, Sherlock. Definitely."

Sherlock straightened up, stil gazing ahead, out of the window. "Good." John could see his features, vaguely mirrored in the glass.

Sherlock walked towards where John was sitting in his armchair. John didn't blink for fear he would miss something that would clear up whatever the hell was going on.

"John..." Those eyes that could easily be a painting of a galaxy. Those God damn eyes.

Sherlock moved forward to steady himself - hands on the back of John's chair, one knee between his flatmates legs.

John was 100% done. He yanked Sherlock's face down to his - his lips were slightly dry, probably from the cold weather. God, Sherlock was amazing at this. He briefly felt his flatmate's tongue scan his mouth with his own, categorizing him, incorporating each fact about him into the library he kept in his mind.

Sherlock was having some difficulty kissing John, his hands were slipping, and he was finding it increasingly hard not to accidentally knee John in an area he would truly not appreciate. John must have sensed this - or something else - for he stopped kissing Sherlock, and pulled the both of them over to the couch, before pressing his lips to his own again.

Sherlock was very glad he'd done this before he went away. He would miss it so much, but John, he had to let John know. He had to protect him, but he had to let him know. The two ideas had clashed together, jostled by logic and the love he felt for the man he was now kissing, and so intrinsically mixed up in, and this is how it would end - no, this could only be the inception of everything Sherlock wanted.

John had always had feelings for Sherlock, he sometimes suspected they transcended what a flatmate and colleague (he shuttered at the word) would want - but reasoned that it had something to do with the lack of proper, lasting relationships he'd experienced as of late.

He left Sherlock's face alone for a bit, and contented himself to rubbing his thumb across the broad of Sherlock's hand - the one that was not tangled in John's hair. They looked at each other - seeing in the other a case that perhaps would never be solved - John didn't mind, and Sherlock found he didn't either.

"Sherlock, I-"

John was interrupted by an opportune kiss from Sherlock.

"Be quiet John - I need to tell you something first." He looked fiercely into John's eyes for almost a minute, leaving John to stare back, bewildered.

"Look, Sherlock-"

"John, I think I love you."

John smiled. "I think I could live with that." He propped himself up on his elbow, adding, "I think I love you as well."

"What did you say, John?"

John was in the his and Mary's bedroom, in their apartment on Pennard Road.

"Nothing, nothing at all."


End file.
